Runaway Global Warming
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Yes, it does - which is why no one is saying we should extrapolate that.
When I suggested going over the longest possible period of time (i.e. back to the beginning) you called the suggestion "silly." Are you calling your own argument silly? If so I will let you argue with yourself. Let us know who wins!
Certainly land cleared of trees (big negative storage of carbon) and then left to re-forest can get back to zero change in carbon storage. We were addressing the question: Do or have forest been sinks or sources of carbon storage? The clear answer to that, over the last 100 years, is they are, on average, net sources of CO2 - Because on average man clears them to put the land to higher economic use.
Even in the Amazon now there are sub division that have net storage occurring (say during recovery from a fire). I am not denying that some small forests* or parts of large forest do store carbon as they mature to a stable state. The sad fact is that there are more forest in a stable mature state being burnt or put to higher economic use than the relatively few now growing towards that stable mature state.
So now IN GENERAL forests are sources, not sinks, for atmospheric carbon,
and you said the converse and yes I more than "seem to" I do disagree with that claim.
* Like the one cleared for a farm and now recovering, you mentioned.
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They still are not fast growing (in the article). And he describes them (in the article) as small trees. Define small tree. 6 foot? 10 foot? I've seen moose in alaska running around shrubs that tall (video not in person).
In the Boreal forest area of Canada, A. incana is often associated with Black Spruce in the forest type termed Black Spruce/Speckled Alder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnus_incana
You do have a habit of extrapolating information from one spot to another. No where in the article does the researcher claim a few thousand year wait. Expected a couple of centuries. Hasnt been a couple of centuries yet so one cannot conclude it wont happen.
But that doesnt sell newspapers (or people) does it?
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalGarden/
while CO2 is increasing at .05%/year, npp is oncreasing at well over 10 times that amount
while CO2 is increasing at .05%/year, npp is oncreasing at well over 10 times that amount
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Why would an analysis of the past hundred years according to theory and insight derived from all of earth's known history, decades of research findings, and careful employment of current science, be likely to have missed "most of what drives earth's climate"?sculptor said:
What major factors do you think are missing from all of current climatology and related sciences?
They are so much faster growing they attain tree size within 50 years - something they could not attain in their entire tree lives before the recent warming.milkweed said:
Follow his usage. He's the one doing the research.milkweed said:
Some of them. Warmer temperatures also help increase net primary production in most places - at the expense of the cold-adapted species, of course, and always presuming enough water, and up to a limit.sculptor said:
That's on land. It's not quite the same in the ocean.
Your link, btw, lists the major factors boosting primary productivity - CO2 boost itself does not make this list:
Did you have a reason for posting that? If you are counting on npp to dampen the CO2 boost enough to prevent any short term runaways, you are probably at risk - it isn't happening now, according to the Mauna Loa data and all other data sets, and the circumstances now are more favorable than they would be in a runaway.
Actually, there are some hints of trouble in your link - the reduction of cloud cover in the southern hemisphere's tropics is a cautionary observation, reminding us that positive feedback from a variety of factors is almost certain.
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Or I could review my old college papers and texts.sculptor said:
Why are you posting that? Do you have some kind of argument, point you want to make? Note that CO2 is seldom a limiting nutrient of photosynthesis in the ocean, so that adding a lot of it will have effect mostly via acidification's consequences.
As I recall, it's usually Iron isn't it?
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
Thinking back to my Aquatic Chemistry classes many moons ago when options such as seeding the oceans with Iron (which, as I recall, was the main limiting nutrient for plankton growth) and pumping liquid CO2 to depth were discussed, both of which had been done as experiments, and both of which had surprising and unexpected results.
Increasingly like Photizo, you are reduced to posting cryptic little snippets you can treat as not yours. That is because any attempt to argue from them would expose the contention you are attempting to commentary and the argument you are attempting to avoid making to analysis - both of which will be, to the extent they are concise and soundly based in reality, indistinguishable from ridicule.sculptor said:
Such sophistication is unnecessary. Two assertions are on the table there: 1) that CO2 boosting provides a "feast" for primary producers, and that is illustrated by the measured gains in npp we see in the linked map, and 2) the oceans harbor 90% of the primary producer mass.sculptor said:
The argument one would expect from those two assertions is not provided, as is becoming typical, but I took a guess that this guy is attempting to argue that oceanic primary production will somehow prevent any temperature runaway we might be risking, by sopping up the extra CO2 in advance. So I pointed out that the land gains in npp, according to the researchers who measured them, were not from boosted CO2 availability, that oceanic npp in general is not currently limited by CO2 availability but by other nutrients and factors, and that (as therefore expected) both arenas of primary production combined are currently failing to keep up with the anthropogenic CO2 boost or limit its consequences.
Wishing to subscribe and ask:
Does any one know of any resource that may indicate planetary core temperature changes over history?
The hypothesis is that climate change is primarily driven by increased Earth mass/core temperatures and not CO2 production directly.
The outcome of such a over heating would drive the increased climate, seismic dynamic-ness that we are experiencing. (If I can prove it do I get the $30k?
)
Whilst temperatures appear to be climbing on average, the dynamic range between extremes is also increasing which leads to notions that the source of the increased dynamics and general upward trend of mean temps, may be attributed to planetary mass over heating. (from core outwards)
Does any one know of any resource that may indicate planetary core temperature changes over history?
The hypothesis is that climate change is primarily driven by increased Earth mass/core temperatures and not CO2 production directly.
The outcome of such a over heating would drive the increased climate, seismic dynamic-ness that we are experiencing. (If I can prove it do I get the $30k?
)Whilst temperatures appear to be climbing on average, the dynamic range between extremes is also increasing which leads to notions that the source of the increased dynamics and general upward trend of mean temps, may be attributed to planetary mass over heating. (from core outwards)
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The heat in the deep earth comes from several sources.
1) Most of it, I think, is released gravitational energy, when Earth formed. That is what heated solar core to thermo- nuclear heat production temperatures and is why Jupiter radiates much more energy than it absorbs. Jupiter if a little more mass had collected there would be the sun's companion weak star - It did not quite get hot enough for fusion, so is still in long "cool off" mode.
2) Next in importance is radio active isotopes mainly thorium, I think but K40 helps too, at least before much of it decayed it was important.
3) I guess, is tidal heating - kinetic energy of the moon. Possibly more indirect than direct flexing by moon's gravity gradient - I. e. twice per day the material below high ocean tide, is slightly compressed and then released not completely elastically.
4) I guess the friction at the interface between the faster rotating solid metallic core and the liquid layers over it is least important, but perhaps is #3.
All of these source are DECREASING in intensity with time but that does not mean their contribution to the surface temperature must constantly decrease. In addition to the relatively constant conductive transfer from core to surface there is also convection - Iceland's creation and the "mid Atlantic ridge" in general are due to this convection and volcanoes are too, but their heat does not come from the deep earth as directly as the rising zone's heat does.
For every "rising zone" mass transport there is at least same mass in a subduction zone. I think, don't know for sure that some of this material gets melted and comes back to the surface in volcanoes. If true the "cycle time period" is very long - Why I have long suggested that nuclear waste with long half life be "glassified" into disk a few inches thick and perhaps a couple of feet in diameter and simply hurled off the stern of special ship(s?) by fully automatic devices when ship is steaming over a deep ocean trench. Man is not likely to be existing on Earth when they come back to the surface as decayed isotopes, like lead.
1) Most of it, I think, is released gravitational energy, when Earth formed. That is what heated solar core to thermo- nuclear heat production temperatures and is why Jupiter radiates much more energy than it absorbs. Jupiter if a little more mass had collected there would be the sun's companion weak star - It did not quite get hot enough for fusion, so is still in long "cool off" mode.
2) Next in importance is radio active isotopes mainly thorium, I think but K40 helps too, at least before much of it decayed it was important.
3) I guess, is tidal heating - kinetic energy of the moon. Possibly more indirect than direct flexing by moon's gravity gradient - I. e. twice per day the material below high ocean tide, is slightly compressed and then released not completely elastically.
4) I guess the friction at the interface between the faster rotating solid metallic core and the liquid layers over it is least important, but perhaps is #3.
All of these source are DECREASING in intensity with time but that does not mean their contribution to the surface temperature must constantly decrease. In addition to the relatively constant conductive transfer from core to surface there is also convection - Iceland's creation and the "mid Atlantic ridge" in general are due to this convection and volcanoes are too, but their heat does not come from the deep earth as directly as the rising zone's heat does.
For every "rising zone" mass transport there is at least same mass in a subduction zone. I think, don't know for sure that some of this material gets melted and comes back to the surface in volcanoes. If true the "cycle time period" is very long - Why I have long suggested that nuclear waste with long half life be "glassified" into disk a few inches thick and perhaps a couple of feet in diameter and simply hurled off the stern of special ship(s?) by fully automatic devices when ship is steaming over a deep ocean trench. Man is not likely to be existing on Earth when they come back to the surface as decayed isotopes, like lead.
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